Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart was recognized as a remarkable musician during childhood and trained within a highly musical Salzburg household. He was born on 27 January 1756 in Salzburg, then part of the Holy Roman Empire, to Leopold Mozart, a composer and violinist, and Anna Maria Pertl. His older sister, Maria Anna Mozart, was also an accomplished performer. Leopold presented both children at courts across Europe, exposing Wolfgang to Italian, German, French, and English musical traditions. These journeys brought contact with influential musicians and patrons, while also making performance, composition, and public display central to his education.¹

His early output included keyboard pieces, symphonies, chamber music, and operas. The tours accelerated his technical development, but the young composer did not simply imitate the styles he encountered: he absorbed them into an increasingly individual language. Works such as the early symphonies and the opera La finta semplice show a precocious command of contemporary forms.

Mozart’s mature career was shaped by his decision to leave Salzburg employment and seek a more independent life in Vienna. After serving under the Salzburg archbishop Hieronymus Colloredo, Mozart moved to Vienna in 1781 and worked as a freelance composer, teacher, performer, and publisher. He married Constanze Weber in 1782; they had six children, of whom two survived infancy. His Viennese years produced major piano concertos, string quartets, symphonies, and operas, although income could fluctuate because freelance musicians lacked dependable salaries and modern copyright protections.²

Vienna also connected him with Joseph Haydn, whose string quartets Mozart admired and dedicated to him. Mozart’s public concerts, especially those featuring his own piano playing, helped sustain his reputation, yet financial pressures and changing musical fashions complicated his final years. His music occupied both aristocratic and emerging bourgeois settings.

Mozart’s importance rests on the breadth and expressive flexibility of his mature works. His operas include The Marriage of Figaro, Don Giovanni, Così fan tutte, and The Magic Flute; these combine sharply characterized vocal writing with ensembles that allow several dramatic perspectives to unfold at once.³ His instrumental music includes the Symphony No. 40 in G minor, the Jupiter Symphony, piano concertos such as Nos. 20 and 21, and influential chamber works including the clarinet quintet and late string quartets.

Clarity, balanced phrasing, tonal direction, and formal proportion are associated with his Classical style, but these traits do not imply emotional simplicity. Minor-mode turbulence, comic timing, contrapuntal density, and sudden changes of texture appear throughout his music. His sacred works include the Mass in C minor and the unfinished Requiem, commissioned in 1791 and completed after his death by collaborators, principally Franz Xaver Süssmayr.⁴

Mozart’s final year combined intense productivity with illness, commissions, and unfinished projects. He completed La clemenza di Tito and The Magic Flute in 1791 while also working on the Requiem. He died in Vienna on 5 December 1791 and was buried at St. Marx Cemetery in a common grave, a normal burial category of the period rather than evidence of a pauper’s funeral; the exact location was not marked, and the later monument is commemorative.

The famous story that Antonio Salieri poisoned Mozart has no credible historical basis. Mozart’s death was followed by speculation, but modern historical assessments cannot establish a single certain medical diagnosis from the surviving evidence. The cataloguing system most often used today, the Köchel catalogue, was first compiled by Ludwig von Köchel in 1862 and revised repeatedly, so work numbers may appear with later additions or variant designations.⁵

Classical period

The eighteenth- and early nineteenth-century era in European art music associated with formal balance, tonal clarity, and genres such as the symphony, sonata, and string quartet.

Köchel catalogue

The chronological catalogue of Mozart’s compositions, identified by K numbers and compiled initially by Ludwig von Köchel.

Singspiel

A German-language theatrical genre combining spoken dialogue with songs, exemplified by Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

Requiem

A musical setting associated with the Roman Catholic Mass for the dead; Mozart’s setting remained unfinished at his death.